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40 years of GUBU
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Harry McGee has turned the IT podcast into a book. McGee spent a lot of time speaking to MacArthur but, judging by this report, he learned nothing.
And his book’s title - “Murder and the Taoiseach” - is absurd. Haughey had no connection with MacArthur although the Cruiser skewered Haughey with GUBU after his press conference. The title is either a backhanded compliment to Haughey (he sells books) or just another expression of the IT’s obsession.
The book doesn’t seem to address the two most interesting questions at this stage:
- What was MacArthur’s relationship with the Attorney-General?
- Did MacArthur have anything to do with the murder of Charles Self?
How murderer Malcolm Macarthur spends his days: library visits, bookshop browsing, living a quiet lifehttps://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2023/05/20/how-the-fates-of-malcolm-macarthur-and-charles-haughey-became-inextricably-linked/
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never heard that before
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/the-killer-the-will-and-the-500k-gubu-legacy/35522619.html
never heard this before either
they [MacArthur and Brenda little] were "caretakers" of a flat in Donnybrook which was once occupied by then Attorney General Patrick Connolly.
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Harry Magee got his book out ahead of Mark O’Connell who had much more extensive conversations with MacArthur.
It is extraordinary that MacArthur is not allowed to speak about his crimes as a condition of his probation. I have never heard any such condition applied in any other case.
Surely he, like all criminals, should be encouraged in every way to confess their crimes even after their release from prison. More than any other Irish prisoner I can think of, MacArthur should tell the truth about these events which transfixed the nation and which never emerged in open court. Of course, he should not be allowed to profit in any way from his crimes but that is a very different issue. It seems the Department of Justice simply do not want us to know the truth but O’Connell’s book might enlighten us.
The book previews in the coming weeks might reveal something new about the case. It hope it is not just another re-hash with a bogus Haughey smear. The Indo still can’t resist the hoary old “pint or transfer” BS about Haughey (which is really a smear on the Gardai i.e they didn’t enforce the law in order to protect their careers.)
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Couple of points:
Not talking to the media is a standard condition of release on licence. In general the view is that it's not a good idea for prisoners to trade on their notoriety. (Also it seems likely that, while Macarthur points to the formal restriction as a reason for not talking, it's probably also true that he doesn't want to talk. Which is entirely understandable without any need for a conspiracy theory to explain it.)
There's been a couple of mentions in this thread of the fact that Paddy Connolly left money to Macarthur's son, implying that this may suggest a deeper relationship than we have been told about between Connolly and Macarthur. This thinking overlooks the fact that Paddy Connolly's son is also Brenda Little's son, and we have always known that Connolly and Little had a long-standing friendship, dating from before she met Macarthur. Connolly also left a bequest to Brenda Little. Connolly appears to have known Macarthur only as Brenda Little's partner.
I remember at the time there was much rumour and speculation about a homosexual dimension to the murders that was supposedly covered up. But much of this was based on homophobic stereotyping; Macarthur was thought to be gay because he wore a bow tie and drank in Bartley Dunnes; Connolly was assumed to be gay because he was sociable but unmarried. In fact there's no evidence that either man was gay, and all those who knew them say they were not. No same-sex partners of either man have ever emerged, and I don't recall any of my friends who were on the gay scene, or connected with it, in the early 1980s identifying either Connolly or Macarthur as known to be gay. It's possible, of course, that one or both of them was deeply closeted, but there really is no reason to think so.
Did Malcolm Macarthur murder Charles Self? The guards did look into this at the time, but this seems to have been based on little more than the fact that both men drank in Bartley Dunne's and Macarthur (they thought) might be gay. We do know that Macarthur murdered Bridie Gargan and Donal Dunne as part of a wildly unrealistic scheme to get money; the Self murder, if it did it, would require some other explanation because it wasn't linked to any opportunity to get money and, anyway, at the time Macarthur's inheritance from his father had not run out.
As for the Macarthur/Haughey link — in one sense there is none. Neither Macarthur nor his crimes had any connection to Charlie Haughey. But in another sense, there is — Macarthur's crimes had a significant influence on Haughey's fortunes. Most of the conspiracy theories and rumours that circulated about the murders at the time may have been baseless, but they were enormously damaging. And the fact that they circulated so readily and secured so much traction is a telling comment on Irish society and politics at the time. Haughey was widely believed to be corrupt, because of his unexplained wealth; he was widely believed to be hypocritical, because of his public social conservatism and private but well-known libertinism; and he was widely believed to be dishonest or worse, because of the evidence he gave at the arms trial and his reluctance thereafter to discuss the matter. All of this helped to create a fevered climate in which rumour, innuendo and conspiracy theories, true or not, would flourish and work their corrosive effect.
Everybody who was around at the time remembers the term "GUBU" - an acronym for Haughey's characterisation of the arrest of Macarthur in Connelly's flat, coined and then immediately repurposed by Conor Cruise O'Brien to characterise Haughey's own administration. So, although Haughey had little direct involvement in the Macarthur affair and even less responsibility for it, the whole affair becomes a useful and powerful metaphor for Charlie Haughey's government.
Post edited by Peregrinus on4 -
Those too young to remember should find a copy of "the Boss" by Joe Joyce and Peter Murtagh, which describes that era as mentioned above.
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This thinking overlooks the fact that Paddy Connolly's son is also Brenda Little's son
Eh?? Did you mean that MacArthur's son is Little's son?
Life ain't always empty.
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I was not aware that it is standard practice here to ban ex-prisoners talking to the media. Ex-prisoners generally don't talk to the media simply because they don't want the public to be reminded of their crimes. And the media would, of course, be very wary of an ex-con spinning their exculpatory lies but MacArthur is exceptional because he never denied his guilt and there are no mitigating circumstances worth talking about. Of course, as I said, MacArthur should not be allowed to profit in any way from his crimes but many jurisdictions have laws to prevent that. A general, life-long ban would surely fall foul of our constitutional guarantee of free speech (which is subject only to specific exceptions - sedition, indecency etc.). In any case, Mark O'Connell seems to have got MacArthur talking. His book is out in two weeks
https://www.foyles.co.uk/book/a-thread-of-violence/mark-oconnell/9781783787708
Was Paddy Connolly the father of Brenda Little's son? I've heard that before but I don't think it was ever acknowledged publicly by any of them, even in the will making the bequest (and long after the taboo on unmarried mothers). The relationship between Connolly and MacArthur is central to this scandal. If it was nothing more than a casual acquaintance, as claimed at the time, then there was no scandal - there were two horrible, senseless murders by an sociopath with no public standing who was caught by excellent detective work in which Connolly was extremely unlucky to be caught up.
In reality, however, Connolly had a substantial relationship with MacArthur and he was at pains to minimise the extent of that relationship. He did not come clean about the extent of that relationship at the time or subsequently so the rumour machine was cranked up to maximum. You say "there was no evidence" that either man was gay but, at that time, such evidence would have given grounds for prosecution of a crime which was almost unmentionable. It was simply unthinkable that such evidence could be produced against the Government's legal advisor, in whose name such crimes were prosecuted until the establishment of the DPP a few years earlier. I don't say Connolly was gay - I think we don't know and he didn't want us to know.
The Charles Self investigation was a dreadful mess and a low-point in relations between the Gardai and the gay community (Declan Flynn's murder in Fairview was also shocking, especially the suspended sentences, but the Gardai did a competent investigation). The initial investigation was such a failure that, like the Sophie Toscan du Plantier case, the cold-case reviews yielded nothing. It is terrible to think that, in both these cases, brutal murderers can sleep soundly knowing that the miraculous advances in forensic science are no threat to them. Conversely, it is hard to rule out any suspect and MacArthur now feels aggrieved that suspicion also hangs over him. Well, yeah. Suck it up, Malcolm!
Unlike his AG, we know that Haughey had no connection whatever to MacArthur and I think any Taoiseach, including Garret Fitzgerald, would have behaved much the same in the bizarre and unprecedented circumstances. Haughey was unfortunate to have this scandal explode on his watch or, to say the same thing, this scandal was manna from heaven for the Opposition and for his opponents in his own party. Conor Cruise was a gifted writer and "GUBU" was a brilliant distillation of Haughey's press conference but, if the truth was known at that time (i.e. that there was no Government conspiracy behind MacArthur), there was in reality no "GUBU" here. Or, more pertinently, the 1980s was a GUBU decade with record unemployment, a return to mass emigration, underfunding/underdelivery in almost every area and no solution in sight for NI.
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I didn't mean to suggest that Connolly was the father of Brenda Little's son — that was a typo on my part. Sorry. I'm just saying that Connolly's bequest to Colin Little is explained by the fact that he is Brenda Little's son, and Connolly was close to Brenda Little. (By "close" I do not mean that they were ever romantic or conjugal partners; just that they had a long-standing friendship.) SFAIK Connolly's only connection with Macarthur is that Macarthur was the partner of Connolly's good friend Brenda Little.
(There's no doubt that Macarthur's crimes blighted the lives of both Brenda and Colin Little, and Connolly may have felt considerable empathy here, partly because he too was affected by the crimes, though less seriously, and partly because he may have thought that his connection with the case, because of his public office, made the whole thing more sensational and increased its adverse impact for the Littles. He was a wealthy man and they were not; he was also a generous man and loyal to his friends. All this seems to me fully to explain the bequests to the Littles.)
Completely agree with you about the Charles Self murder and its investigation. I just feel that the attempt to link it to Macarthur rests mainly on a salacious desire to link two grotesque scandals. There isn't much in the way of evidence behind it.
As for Haughey — yes, he was very unfortunate to become embroiled in this story. It did shake his government and, while he was not responsible for the events, he was responsible for creating the climate in which they would shake his government so badly. (Plus, he did make a couple of misjudgments along the way that fed the problem, like his "At least they got the right man" comment.) But his government survived, at least until the next scandal, and Haughey's own career survived and he went on to return to office and serve his third and most successful term as Taoiseach.
On the don't-speak-to-the-media thing, it's not generally for life; just while a prisoner is out on licence, which is only until his sentence expires. But of course for lifers like Macarthur, the sentence never expires.
Most countries do have laws for seizing any earnings a convict makes arising out of their crimes. In this context those laws would kick in after the licence restriction has expired. But they are generally very hard to enforce, not least because payments can be concealed or can be made indirectly. And the issue with some prisoners is that the kick they get from publicity is not money but attention, notoriety. (This is especially true for narcissists like Macarthur.) Them speaking to the press may gratify our appetite for sensation, but it's also them exploiting their notoriety for kicks, which is Not A Good Thing — not in the interests of victims and their families, not conducive to rehabilitation, etc. We might agree with this policy or disagree with it, but it's not one that was thought up specially for the Macarthur case.
Post edited by Peregrinus on5 -
Yet Macarthur (or is it MacArthur?) did speak with the media - as referenced by Caquas above:
Harry McGee has turned the IT podcast into a book. McGee spent a lot of time speaking to MacArthur but, judging by this report, he learned nothing.
He chose to say little or nothing but nonetheless he did speak with a journalist, so is this forbidden or not?
Life ain't always empty.
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McGee says he spoke to Macarthur but learnt nothing. Doesn't that raise the question of whether Macarthur spoke to McGee? 😉
There is no general rule that Macarthur must never, ever say anything on any subject to anyone who is connected in any way with the media. You'd need to look at the terms of the licence to know exactly what restriction is placed on Macarthur, but it's likely to be that something along the lines of not discussing his crimes or the victims of those crimes for publication. Enforcing this can be difficult; someone could, e.g., give information on background which is not attributed to them in the published report, and how then can you prove that they give the information?
But as I've said before, I don't think Macarthur wants to discuss his crimes. The licence restriction is a convenient rationalisation he can use to deter journalists and the like. I don't think he's saying to himself "how far can I go without breaching the terms of my licence?", but rather "I wish these guys would leave me alone".
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Brendan O’Connor’s interview with Mark O’Connell about “Thread of Violence” is trending on the RTÉ website. O’Connell spent many hours with MacArthur who eventually began to speak about his crimes.
Personally, I have no interest in MacArthur, a nobody and a leech whose only “claims to fame” are two horrible murders which were committed for the lowest motive. This interview must be painful for the families of Bridie Gargan and Dónal Dunne, two hardworking young people whose brutal murders devastated their families. MacArthur is no better than that killer in Nottingham who murdered the two students and a caretaker this week.
My interest in his case is its political reverberations. O’Connor glides past MacArthur’s relationship with the AG (“friend of a friend” 🤫) but dwells on the GUBU aspect of MacArthur going to Croke Park with the AG who sits next to the Garda Commissioner and discusses the murders.
I didn’t know MacArthur wrote to the Taoiseach, apparently in an effort to exonerate the AG. I bet that went down like a lead balloon with Haughey. Was that before or after he sued Haughey for his “got their man” comment? 😫
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I'm open to correction, but I don't recall that Macarthur sued Haughey over that comment.
Rather, as soon as the comment was made, people realised that it could be raised by Macarthur's defence team when he came to trial, to suggest that with the leader of the country publicly confirming his guilt it would be difficult to find an unbiassed jury to try the case, and so he could not receive a fair trial and would have to be discharged. In the febrile atmosphere of the time this then gave rise to rumours that Haughey had deliberately made the comment to try to derail any trial and so as to try and get Macarthur off.
In the event, of course, Macarthur pleaded guilty so there was no objection based on the comment. It was never raised by him or his lawyers.
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MacArthur did indeed. To be exact he made:
AN APPLICATION FOR AN ORDER OF ATTACHMENT FORCONTEMPT OF COURT AGAINST AN TAOISEACH, CHARLES J. HAUGHEY,ESQ., T.D.:
but the case was thrown out at the preliminary stage by Declan Costello because Haughey’s remark was “inadvertent” and the GIS had immediately asked journalists not to report it.
Haughey was a qualified barrister who understood immediately that this was a gaffe but I think it was the only aspect of the MacArthur affair for which he could be justly criticised and it was no more than a slip of the tongue which anyone could have made in the circumstances. There is so much scope for valid criticism of Haughey that it is weird how often the MacArthur case is highlighted on his list of failures.
MacArthur also complained of the publication of “the contents of his letter” to the Haughey (I.e. the bit exonerating the AG) but that argument was also dismissed by Declan Costello. I don’t think the letter itself, or any other documents on this case, were ever released despite an FOI request.
The trial was a fiasco - MacArthur was only charged with the murder of Bridie Gargan and there was no evidence presented. Everything was done to minimise publicity. Why?
https://www.thejournal.ie/no-mention-of-patrick-connolly-gubu-in-1982-state-papers-721266-Dec2012/
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I stand corrected. Thank you.
As to why the trial was so brief — on Macarthur's side the focus was on how to minimise his sentence. Conviction was very probable and, if convicted, a life sentence was mandatory. But we know time actually served by lifers can vary considerably, depending on the facts and circumstances of the case. The thinking may have been that, with only one conviction instead of two, and with no long-drawn-out examination of the sordid details of the case in court, the public sensation surrounding the case would fade more quickly and his chances of earlier, rather than later release would be maximised.
Of course, if that was the strategy, it backfired disastrously; Macarthur ended up serving 30 years. But it's not implausible that that was Macarthur's defence team's strategy at the time. It might have been an, um, aggressively optimistic strategy but, really, when you think about it, was there a better one open to them?
Why, though, did the State agree to this course? One factor is that the case against Macarthur for Dunne's murder was quite weak. There were several eye-witnesses to various aspects of the Gargan murder, or who could place Macarthur in the vicinity at the time; there were none at all for the Dunne murder. Accepting a guilty plea for the Gargan murder in return for dropping the weaker Dunne charge meant a certain conviction and a certain life sentence. The main downside was unsatisfied public curiosity. At the time, among the legal profession, there was a culture of annoyance with the media and a feeling that the public's right to know was at best a secondary consideration in prosecuting crimes. The thinking was that this right would be adequately satisfied by the prosecution reading out a statement of the evidence against Macarthur, and calling a Garda witness to give background on the case.
In the event that plan didn't work. The trial judge rejected it on the grounds that, with a mandatory life sentence, the evidence couldn't affect the sentencing decision and so was unnecessary. Neither the prosecution nor the defence had foreseen that; for both, it was unwelcome, since it fuelled the rumours of a cover-up and, therefore, of there being something that needed to be covered up. So it exacerbated and prolonged the sensation surrounding the case, to the disadvantage both of Macarthur and of the Government.
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An extract from O'Connells book was published in the guardian. It mentions licence condition around discussing his crimes with the press.
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Interestingly , the article also appears to offer a justification for the killings. That, finding himself in a financial crisis taking employment would be a 'blemish' on the aesthetic of his life narrative and therefore he turned to crime.
It seems a strange frame of mind that would see employment as a blemish but not criminal activity. And that is giving him the benefit of his statement that he did not intend to kill Bridie Gargan. Is there any reason to doubt his guilt for the second killing?
His explanation for talking to O'Connell seems to be , a), that O'Connell was not working for any newspaper and b) that O'Connell approached him and not the other way around.
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I see no good reason why the State did not prosecute Macarthur for the murder of Donal Dunne. The arguments you put forward here were raised in the media at the time and they simply don't wash.
Macarthur had confessed freely and openly to killing both Bridie Gargan and Donal Dunne. There was compelling circumstantial evidence against him in the Dunne case, including eye-witnesses who had seen him in the vicinity. The Dunne family were not consulted about the decision not to prosecute and were, rightly, aggrieved.The DPP did a deal which was extremely generous to the defence and which pre-empted a proper trial in a case which had aroused intense and entirely justifiable public interest.
I am disappointed by the extract from Mark O'Connell's book. O'Connell is interested in drawing a psychological portrait of Macarthur but all that matters in that regard is well-known: Macarthur was running out of funds for his life of pampered leisure and his hare-brained preparations for a bank robbery resulted in the brutal murder of two young people, a nurse and a farmer.
The Gardai did a top-class job in catching this oddball killer who should have spent his days contemplating his base crimes in a cold, dank cell. Instead, he resents the length of time he spent in jail and he is not remorseful, just very sorry for himself. He is the object of continuing morbid curiosity among Irish intellectuals. John Banville cast him as an Irish Raskolnikov and I think Macarthur liked that sort of intellectual relativising which appeals to the phoney academic image he projects. I'm not surprised the Macarthur engaged extensively with O'Connell, a post-doctoral fellow in Trinity, while shunning journalists like Harry McGee. (Incidentally, O'Connell notes a curious instance of truth in fiction - in The Book of Evidence, the murderer drinks Apollinaire mineral water which was the brand of bottled water that Macarthur ordered when staying with the AG but the Gardai and the media all consistently mis-reported this item as Perrier water. I wonder if this is a fortuitous coincidence or did Banville have a special source? No pun intended!).
The only thing that interests me is whether or not Macarthur had high-level protection, as many believed at the time. If not, it is Macarthur's victims who deserve to be remembered not their killer, a bumbling egotist who preferred to kill rather than work for a living. It was widely believed that Haughey was somehow behind a conspiracy to protect Macarthur but it seems clear now, despite the best efforts of Harry McGee, that Haughey simply had the misfortune to try to explain to the Irish people how the most wanted criminal was arrested in his Attorney General's apartment. Haughey's explanation was, in a nutshell, GUBU. But the AG's involvement may have been something more than bizarre happenstance and "unbelievable mischance". The AG told Haughey that Macarthur was merely a casual acquaintance who was just passing through when he was arrested. That was also the story the media gave us. But then he left a substantial bequest to the boy for whom Macarthur was a father figure. Does Mark O'Connell explain this?
It seems Connolly was a friend of the boy's mother but I have never heard of such a generous bequest on such tenuous grounds. And it turns out that Macarthur had spent at least three weeks with the AG in Dalkey. And he resided for a year or more in the AG's other apartment in Ranelagh (I think the one bequeathed to the boy). The AG's standards of hospitality, like his bequests, may have been more generous than anyone I've ever met but I doubt he would have a "casual acquaintance" take up residence in his apartment.
Mark O'Connell says his interest in the case was first aroused because his grandparents lived in the same apartment complex in Dalkey and knew the AG as a neighbour but, as far as I can tell at this stage, O'Connell is not much interested in the AG's relationship with Macarthur. If that relationship was as tenuous as we are led to believe, then I doubt if Macarthur had high-level protection and his deal with the DPP was just a very poor judgement call. His was also a remarkably speedy and economical trial, even by the standards of the day. He was convicted and sentenced for the murder of Bridie Gargan less than six months after the crime and less than five months after his arrest. Total legal fees were £5,000!
But what if his defence, especially the redoubtable Paddy McEntee, had cards to play with the DPP which we have never been allowed to see? Remember, the DPP had been an official of the AG's Office until a few years earlier and his Office works in tandem with the AG on many cases. The refusal to release documents on this case 40 years later adds to a sense of cover-up.
But I don't see Haughey's fingerprints on this coverup, perhaps uniquely among all the scandals that surround him. On the contrary, it was in the interests of his government to quell rampant public speculation by putting everything into the open. And Haughey lost the election in November1982 so he was out of power when Macarthur went to trial in January 1983. The fiasco of a that trial re-kindled public suspicions of a coverup but without a clear target because Haughey could hardly have been pulling the strings. Of course, it was in the interests of the Irish Times and the newly-installed coalition Government to keep the focus on Haughey (and even now, 40 years later).
I don't think Mark O'Connell will enlighten us about the issue which matters to the Irish people i.e. was Macarthur protected by powerful interests or did Irish people fall for a fake conspiracy in the febrile atmosphere of the early 1980s? No one, then or now, imagines for a moment that the AG had the slightest involvement in Macarthur's crimes but that is not the issue. Ultimately, Macarthur did not benefit from any special protection (i.e. he spent 30 years in jail) but does his sense of grievance spring from a belief that he did have a special deal in 1983 and it was reneged on?
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Oh, I agree that the decision not to try Macarthur for the Dunne murder was a bad one. I think the reasons for the decision were as I have stated, but I don't they they adequately justify the decision.
I don't think Macarthur had high-level protection. At the very least, we can say with certainty that, if he did have high-level protection, it was singularly useless. He ended up serving far, far longer than most convicted murderers serve.
As for the bequest to Macarthur's son, I struggle to see why you think a connection with the boy's father would explain the bequest while simultaneously dismissing the possibility that a connection with the boy's mother would explain the bequest. Connolly knew Brenda Little for much longer than he knew Malcolm Macarthur. The Donnybrook apartment that Connolly provided for a year was provided to both Little and Macarthur; why do you assume that this indicates a close connection to Macarthur but not to Little? The truth is that Macarthur never got anything from Connolly except during the period when he was Little's partner. Little and Connolly were close before Macarthur appeared on the scene and they remained close after he left it. Most tellingly at all, you attach enormous significance to bequest that Connolly left to Colin Little, but seemingly no significance at all to the much larger bequest that he left to Brenda Little. Brenda Little was left €100,000 and an apartment in Ranelagh, which at the time would have been worth about €300,000; Colin Little was left €75,000 and a collection of cigarette cards. Malcolm Macarthur was left nothing.
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I suspect that, in Macarthur's mind, the blemish was not so much taking employment as being seen to take employment (and, certainly, any employment of a kind for which he was qualified). Crime was not a blemish because he expected to get away with it; nobody would know that he was a criminal.
As for his intention to kill, before he attacked Bridie Gargan he bought a shovel, and his confession stated that he did this because he recognised that, um, people might die in the course of or in consequence of his crimes, and if they did he intended to conceal their bodies by burying them. So, whether or not he intended to kill Bridie Gargan, he certainly contemplated it as something that might happen.
The same is probably true of Donal Dunne. Perhaps he told himself that he would be quite happy to take the gun and Dunne's car, leaving Dunne unhurt or, at any rate, alive. That, of course, is not how things played out, or how they were ever likely to play out, but part of Macarthur's psychological defence mechanism against guilt or remorse for this crimes may have been him telling himself that he never meant to kill anyone; it was only his victims' panic or stupidity or other external factors that derailed the plan and resulted in the deaths.
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As for the bequest to Macarthur's son, I struggle to see why you think a connection with the boy's father would explain the bequest while simultaneously dismissing the possibility that a connection with the boy's mother would explain the bequest.
That's neither what I think nor what I said.
I am saying that the bequest to the boy shows the Irish people were lied to when they were told that Macarthur was merely a "casual acquaintance" of the AG. It was not "GUBU" that Macarthur was in the AG's apartment. We now see that it was perfectly natural that Macarthur was staying for weeks on end with his friend the AG.
And that is true even if Connolly was closer to the boy's mother. You say she knew Connolly for years before Macarthur but that's not what the media say:
As I said, Macarthur did not actually benefit from the deal with the DPP over his trial. Public outrage at the 5 minute trial was profound, after which no Minister for Justice was going to release Macarthur early i.e. as if he had "only" committed one murder to which he had pleaded guilty. As I also said, the deal would explain Macarthur's sense of grievance at his 30 year incarceration which, in the absence of any deal, would be a normal term for the worst murderers.
Incidentally, Macarthur should also have been charged with the attempted armed robbery of Harry Beiling in Killiney. That incident was truly GUBU ("Sorry I've no cash, will you take a cheque? ... Just wait here while I escape out my bedroom window") but it should have been included in the indictment because it shows Macarthur was still on his crime spree and, in all likelihood, would have killed again but for the excellent work of the Gardai.
My question remains - why was there such an unprecedented deal to shut down this trial? The Bridie Gargan case was a slam dunk, "guilty but insane" was a non-runner after the psychological reports, and even if there was a remote risk of acquittal on the Dunne case, it was dereliction of the DPP's duty not to put that case to a jury. Issues of complexity, delay and legal costs are simply not relevant to a trial of this magnitude. No, there is no good explanation for this deal which was the fruit of complex negotiations with Paddy McEntee. I see some lawyers saying the only problem was the deal didn't satisfy public curiosity. Try telling that to the Dunne family! Shows how criminal lawyers can lose their moral compass.
Incidentally, the one person at the trial who was not privy to the deal was the judge. His refusal to hear prosecution evidence was absolutely correct procedurally but it frustrated the media and unleashed the storm of public protest.
So, after all the media coverage, the podcasts and now two new books, the darkest suspicions of 40 years ago have not been dispelled, which is a grave injustice to families of the bereaved and to the Gardai involved.
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As I also said, the deal would explain Macarthur's sense of grievance at his 30 year incarceration which, in the absence of any deal, would be a normal term for the worst murderers.The average sentence served for murder was a lot lower at the time. It is a lot lower now. The average served now is only 22 years. The idea of a deal being done to promise mcarthur a lower sentence is nonsense. Decisions on release of those on life sentences is the purview of the government of theday. There is no way a DPP could make a deal promising a lower served sentence as they would have no idea of, or control over, the government at the time of release.
Doing a plea deal was entirely sensible from the point of view of the DPP. murder trials are very expensive. Not making a deal would end up with an expensive trial and an outcome no different to the plea deal that was made. It even makes sense from the POV of McArthur. The case against him was a slam dunk. Why go through that when there is no benefit to doing so?
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Of the prisoners serving life sentences who have been released, the average sentence served in prison is approximately 18 years.
The idea of a deal being done to promise mcarthur a lower sentence is nonsense.
On the contrary, that's the only reason such deals are done in murder cases. As I explained, the deal backfired because of intense public outrage and no Minister for Justice would touch it until he had served a sentence befitting a callous double-murderer, even if he was not going to re-offend. Which was about 30 years.
Here's a good explainer from Magill, the best current affairs magazine of that era.
https://magill.ie/archive/justice-behind-closed-doors-malcom-macarthur-case
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Nothing there changes what I said.
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It contradicts your notion that
The idea of a deal being done to promise mcarthur a lower sentence is nonsense
on the contrary, Magill said
The release of Malcom MacArthur will come up for consideration in five years time. It is then he expects to reap the benefit of pleading guilty to the murder of Bridie Gargan, because the factors that will determine his release date were considered long before the case ever came to trial
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Yes, but that doesn't point to a deal; it points to Macarthur's legal team trying to position him most favourably for a parole decision when the issue of parole would arise. A "deal" would imply that someone on the prosecution or government side made some representation that, if Macarthur pleaded guilty, he would get an earlier parole. There isn't a whisper of that in the Magill article. (Would a representation of that kind even have had much credibility, given the likelihood that a different Minister for Justice, quite possibly from a different party, would be in office by the time parole came to be considered?)
And your eagerness to believe in a close relationship with Connolly smacks of the conspiracy theorist. You have Macarthur staying with Connolly for "weeks on end". In fact he arrived on 4 August and was arrested on 13 August; one week. You're fixated on the "substantial bequest" to Colin Little, and convinced that it indicates Connolly's closeness with his father, when there is another obvious and better-evidenced explanation plain to see; Connolly's closeness with his mother, to whom he left a much, much more substantial bequest, that you don't mention.
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It seems preposterous that Magill suggested a convicted murderer sentenced to life could be considered for parole after five years - in an extremely high-profile case at that.
Life ain't always empty.
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Nitpick: The Magill article was published in July 1983, so five years from then would actually be six years from the start of his sentence. (He was convicted in January 1983 but his sentence was, as is standard, backdated to when he was taken into custody in August 1982.
Still, six years looks very early.
I think what may be going on here is that, in the 1980s, six years was the time that must be served before a lifer could be considered for parole. (It is now 12 years. For people with a fixed term sentence it's when half the sentence has elapsed.) But being considered for parole and actually getting parole are not at all the same thing. As I understand it, for someone convicted of a serious offence of violence, getting parole on first consideration is pretty rare, and would require unusual factors. What more normally happens is that the prisoner's progress is reviewed; advice is given as to things the prisoner might do to demonstrate his continuing rehabilitation; an indication is given as to how future parole applications might be viewed (which can be a negative indication).
I think it's very unlikely that Macarthur or, certainly, his legal team might have expected that he would be paroled after as little as six years. Rather, at that time he might hope to get a favourable review and a positive indication, based in part on his guilty plea.
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That's a bizarre reading of the Magill article which is explicitly, from start to finish, about a deal with the DPP. Did you not read the bit that says
Macarthur had two options - plead guilty twice or squeeze a deal out of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The only issue is why the DPP accepted the deal i.e. why did he not do his duty and prosecute the man indicted for the murder of Donal Dunne? Various explanations are mooted in Magill but they are simply unconvincing, especially the idea that Macarthur might be acquitted on the Dunne trial. Has the DPP ever failed to prosecute anyone else who confessed openly to a killing?
I really dislike the way some lawyers regard the public interest in this trial as mere curiosity. Have they forgotten that prosecutions are taken in the name of the People? Worse still was the treatment of the Dunne family. As to the savings on legal costs? I would be banned from this thread if I expressed my view fully but it implies this incredible scenario - a man who murdered two young people because he wanted money to finance his life of leisure was not prosecuted for one of those murders because the DPP refused to spend some of the money which had been voted to his Office by the Dáil for the prosecution of crime.
Magill is clearly saying that Macarthur expected to benefit from Parole Board leniency because of the way his trial was managed. If you don't believe there was a deal because Magill does not say "The DPP promised a lenient sentence to Ireland's most notorious murderer" then you are obviously not a journalist and maybe you should reflect on how Vincent Browne published Ireland's most insightful magazine during those treacherous times while still retaining his family home and the shirt on his back. I hope you don't think Paddy McEntee persuaded his client to plead guilty to a dreadful murder simply in return for a nolle prosequi on another murder although, because of the public outrage, that was the net effect, to Macarthur's obvious chagrin.
It's weird to be accused of being a conspiracy theorist when I have been consistently arguing here against one of the most pervasive conspiracy theories in modern Ireland i.e. the belief that the Haughey government was shielding a double murderer. Harry McGee played on that conspiracy theory recently with his book and podcast "The Murderer and the Taoiseach" although McGee had to admit (reluctantly!) that Haughey had no ties to Macarthur.
So I am focussed on the relationship between the AG and Macarthur because there would have been no scandal otherwise. Now we know we were lied to about that relationship although you seem unwilling to face the fact that Macarthur was a close friend of the AG. I say Macarthur spent "weeks on end" as the AG's host guest because he was there for three weeks (not one) when his stay was rudely interrupted by the Garda Síochána. That's what Mark O'Connell tells us in the Guardian.
We are left to speculate about their relationship because the trial was deliberately shut down in an unprecedented manner and no documents are being released under FOI or to the National Archives. And, for reasons that are simply beyond me, neither McGee nor O'Connell focusses in their respective books on the only issue that would make these terrible murders a public scandal.
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The deal was the dropping of the Dunne charge, not a shorter sentence (which was impossible) or a promise of parole (a matter in which the DPP has no input). Macarthur and his legal team hoped that being convicted of just one murder would be a a factor conducive to early parole, but nobody suggests that the DPP offered any reassurance on this; nor is it likely that he would have or the Macarthur's legal team would have placed any reliance on it if he did. Any parole decision would be taken several years later by the parole board and the then Minister for Justice; no DPP could give any credible assurances about what either of them would do and, whatever about Macarthur, Paddy McEntee would have been well aware of that.
Macarthur didn't stay with Connolly for three weeks. O'Connell says that Macarthur was arrested there three weeks after the Gargan murder, which is correct, but he doesn't say when Macarthur arrived there. Before and for some time after the Gargan murder Macarthur was staying in rented accommodation in Dun Laoghaire. and generally lying low; for obvious reasons, he didn't want his acquaintances in Dublin to know that he was back. However after descriptions of the wanted man were broadcast he became concerned (correctly, as it turned out) that a newspaper seller who operated near his Dun Laoghaire accommodation had noticed him and became suspicious, so he needed to move. It was only after the incident at Beiling's house that Macarthur went to Connolly and asked to stay there; that was on 4 August.
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My understanding is that a guy who never worked a day in his life ran out of money.
He read a story of how easy it was to steal money and decided that was the easiest way to solve his financial problems.
The rest is just grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented.
It's not even the most blood letting incident of Dublin's leafy suburbs.
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